Recipe w/ winter squash

Miso-butternut squash soup w/ black beans and cilantro salsa

Ingredients: onion, olive oil, ginger, cumin, cayenne, butternut squash, miso broth*, cream, cooked black beans, yellow tomatoes, cilantro, shallot, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper

Preparing: Dice your onion and cook gently in olive oil. Add grated fresh ginger, 1-2 tsp cumin, a splash of cayenne pepper and stir for 1 minute. Next add cubed butternut squash, salt and pepper, and miso stock (about 4 cups of stock to one medium squash). Cook until squash is tender. Puree soup until very smooth. Put back on heat and stir in heavy cream (about 1/2-1 cup, to taste), cooked black beans, and chopped yellow tomatoes. Heat through.

Eating: Serve hot soup with this garnish/salsa: cilantro leaves, sliced shallot, 1-2 Tbsp sherry vinegar and salt.

Dish history: Leftover miso-squash soup (original adaptation from here) with some freshy-harvested black beans and end-of-season yellow brandywines... delicious. If you don't like cilantro (shame on you), at least stir in some sherry vinegar to the soup before eating.

* To make miso broth: I suppose everyone has their own method... I heat 1 cup of water for each Tbsp of miso paste. But the key is stirring the miso paste in a small amount of that water until it forms a paste, and then stirring it into the rest of the hot water. Never let miso stock boil.